Marianne Thorsen - Biography

The winner of several international competitions, including most notably the 2003 Sion Valais International Competition, Marianne Thorsen has established herself as one of Norway’s leading violinists. She has performed with the Philharmonia Orchestra, BBC Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony and most of the major orchestras in Scandinavia.

Marianne enjoys a regular collaboration with TrondheimSolistene with whom she recently recorded Mozart’s Violin Concertos Nos 3, 4 and 5 for 2L Recordings to great critical acclaim, winning the Norwegian Spelemann Prize. Her recording with the Trondheim Symphony Orchestra of Ståle Kleiberg’s Violin Concerto, dedicated to her, received a Grammy nomination in 2010; and a performance of Ketil Hvoslef’s Concerto with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra was broadcast live on national Norwegian television, NRK, the same year. 2011 - 2013 saw the release of five CDs of music by Halvorsen and Svendsen on the Chandos label, with Thorsen as soloist alongside the Bergen Philharmonic and Neeme Järvi including Svendsen’s Violin Concerto and Halvorsen’s Three Norwegian Dances.

A keen chamber musician, Marianne Thorsen was a founder member of the Leopold String Trio from 1998 to 2006, with whom she performed at venues including Carnegie Hall, New York, the Wiener Musikverein, and Wigmore Hall, London. In 2000 she was appointed Leader of the internationally renowned Nash Ensemble of London. Marianne was the Artistic Director of the festival Vinterfestspill i Bergstaden in Røros, Norway from 2009 to 2013.

In 2006, Marianne Thorsen was appointed Professor at the Institute of Music at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim and she plays the Emiliani Stradivari violin by kind arrangement with the Leif Hoegh Foundation.